A review by reader_cheryl
Surviving the Island of Grace: A Memoir of Alaska by Leslie Leyland Fields
4.0
Leslie Leyland Fields didn't know what to expect when she married a commercial salmon fisherman and moved to a remote island in the Gulf of Alaska. This book is her story. The reader is alongside Leslie as she struggles to adapt to a lifestyle that is physically and emotionally demanding, lived out on a remote Alaskan island with no running water, electricity, or contact with the outside world.
She writes honestly of her struggles to live in this harsh environment while trying to build a marriage and, later, to raise a family. It's difficult life that challenges her physically, mentally and spiritually, but a life she learns to embrace as the years go by.
Her writing brings to life her trials as a twenty-year old newlywed adapting to life with her husband's family, inductee into the world of salmon fishing in wild Alaska, to new mother; each new role bringing a new set of challenges into her wilderness life. Like the waves sometimes threaten to swamp her fishing boat, challenges threaten to swamp her life as well. But she never quits; instead choosing to move through her challenges, emerging on the other side. At times bruised and battered, but never totally giving up. In that respect, this is also a book of hope, of working through the challenges instead of giving up.
She writes honestly of her struggles to live in this harsh environment while trying to build a marriage and, later, to raise a family. It's difficult life that challenges her physically, mentally and spiritually, but a life she learns to embrace as the years go by.
Her writing brings to life her trials as a twenty-year old newlywed adapting to life with her husband's family, inductee into the world of salmon fishing in wild Alaska, to new mother; each new role bringing a new set of challenges into her wilderness life. Like the waves sometimes threaten to swamp her fishing boat, challenges threaten to swamp her life as well. But she never quits; instead choosing to move through her challenges, emerging on the other side. At times bruised and battered, but never totally giving up. In that respect, this is also a book of hope, of working through the challenges instead of giving up.